Ovid
Ovid (43 BCE–17/18 CE) was a Roman poet whose works include the Metamorphoses, the Amores, and the exile poems Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto.
Augustan literature: Latin literature produced during the rule of Augustus, from 27 BCE to 14 CE. Ovid’s career unfolded within this literary culture and its political expectations.
Metamorphoses: Ovid’s epic poem in fifteen books narrating transformations from the creation of the world to the age of Augustus. It is his most influential work and the fullest expression of his mythological storytelling.
Sulmo: An ancient town in central Italy, now Sulmona, where Ovid was born. Ovid’s birthplace anchored his identity even as his poetry centered on Rome.
Virgil: A Roman poet best known for the Eclogues, Georgics, and epic Aeneid. Ovid inherited epic conventions from Virgil while giving mythic transformation a different emphasis.
Ovidian influence: The reception and adaptation of Ovid’s works in later literature, visual art, and other media. His myths and poetic techniques became lasting sources for writers and artists.
Roman elegy: A Latin poetic genre, often written in elegiac couplets, associated with love, desire, and personal voice. The Amores and Ars Amatoria adapt this genre’s conventions.
Amores: Ovid’s collection of love elegies, composed in three books of Latin poetry. These early poems established his witty, self-conscious approach to Roman love elegy.
Augustus: The first Roman emperor, who ruled from 27 BCE until his death in 14 CE. Ovid’s writing flourished under Augustus, whose moral program forms an uneasy backdrop to it.
Horace: A Roman poet whose works include the Odes, Satires, and Epistles. His career offers a contrasting model of poetic authority within Augustan Rome.
Pyramus and Thisbe: A tragic love story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses about two young neighbors whose families forbid their marriage. Its later adaptations show how one Ovidian tale could travel across genres and periods.